


the very same trap

by iamremy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Codependent Winchesters (Supernatural), Dean Winchester as Death, Episode: s10e23 My Brother's Keeper, Gen, Immortal Winchesters (Supernatural), Inhuman Winchesters, Non-Chronological, Post-Episode: s10e23 My Brother's Keeper, SPN Eldritch Bang, Siren Sam Winchester, art included
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:13:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27044812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamremy/pseuds/iamremy
Summary: Actions have consequences.Dean swings the scythe, and he becomes Death with the Mark, immortal, ageless, unable to die. Sam does not.But he doesn't remain human, either.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 74
Collections: Supernatural Eldritch Bang





	the very same trap

**Author's Note:**

> this is my second time participating in this event, and it has been so much fun!! i try not to be partial to my own work but this is one of my favorite things that i've written lol
> 
> this round, my artist is the WONDERFUL, AMAZINGLY TALENTED [marsajar](https://marsajar.tumblr.com/). her art is amazing, and i'm not gonna lie, she made my experience about a thousand times better. an absolute pleasure to work with, plus the way she drew, it's like she literally read my mind. it's exactly the way i imagined the scenes as i wrote them, and i cannot be more grateful <3  
> [here's the art post](https://marsajar.tumblr.com/post/632148279842455552/here-it-is-just-in-time-for-the-spooky-season) \- give it a reblog pls if you're on tumblr, and show marsajar some love!
> 
> special thanks of course to my beta sanjy (spnxbookworm on tumblr/kaiyaa on ao3) and to pooja (winchesterpooja on both tumblr and ao3) for all your help, motivation, and love <3 you guys are the best things in my life.  
> and of course, thank you to all the mods for putting together another awesome eldritch bang!!!
> 
> onwards now.
> 
> the title of the story is from the following quote by jonathan friesen:  
> “how easy it was to slip through the cracks alongside him. to fall in **the very same trap** i had committed to free him from.”
> 
>  **warnings:** sexual assault attempt; pedophilia mention. proceed with caution of either of those is a trigger.

Beer ice cold, perfect. The way Sam likes it. Opened by Dean, handed over. Fingers brushing. Ice cold on the bottle.

 _Lookin_ _’_ _a bit pale, Sammy._

_I’m fine._

_Yeah?_

_Yeah._

Shrug. _I’ll take your word for it._

Sun-heated leather seats. An in-between space. Ice cold beer.

He’s happy to exist.

Whimpering, teary-eyed, desperate. “Help, please. Please, I’m - I need your help.”

She hesitates. He’s a stranger. She wouldn’t even have found him if she’d gone her normal route this morning. She doesn’t know what made her turn onto the dirt road through the fields, but here she is, and here he is.

“Please,” he pleads.

He’s beautiful, even covered in blood. Eyes so luminous they almost glow, even in the sunlight. Soft-looking hair, auburn-copper-brown. Tan skin, long legs. Shinbone sticking out, nail beds battered. Bloody lips and watery eyes.

“Please.” 

“I’ll call 911,” she says, hesitating.

“Just help me up,” he says, voice wavering. It sounds like honey, raw and unfiltered, like the bees at her grandfather’s farm used to make when she was a child.

“You’re hurt, you need a hospital,” she reasons, phone halfway up to her ear.

“I’ll be all right, please, just help me up,” he says, eyes widening a little, so bright, sunlight through colored glass, and she has a vague memory of childhood, Pastor Mark’s voice, Sundays at church with her grandparents before everything went to shit-

“What happened?” she can’t help but ask. Her phone is somehow back in her pocket.

“I fell,” he says, self-deprecating laugh, music in the breeze. “Didn’t mean to - who does? My big brother always tells me I’m too clumsy for my own good, and-” He stops, winces. “I’m used to it, honestly.” Another short laugh. Her heart soars and she doesn’t know why. “Just help me up, and I’ll be on my way, I’ll be okay.”

It makes no sense. He’s bleeding out in front of her. Shinbone sticking out of torn jeans. Mouth red from blood. It’s more than just a fall.

She reaches out. 

“Thank you,” he says gratefully, and when he smiles she can feel her soul settle in her body.

He grasps her hand. She gasps. Ice cold, lemonade in Grammy’s fridge on a hot day, no, colder, brain-freeze after a too-big bite of ice-cream, numbing her senses, stopping her heart like she’d stopped her grandfather’s. His skin is soft, cold as steel, and he pulls her down as he stands, tall, tall, tall-

Skin so pale it’s almost blue, dark-blond hair stark, dull green eyes. This new one grins, decayed and malicious, reaches out to her with bony fingers, missing nails, flesh sloughing off as she watches.

She can’t breathe. Brain-freeze.

The beautiful one sighs, so hollow, so painfully sad. “Sorry,” he whispers, a murmur in a hurricane. “I’m sorry.”

“She can’t hear you,” says the new one. His voice is everywhere. It sounds like broken bones and bloody teeth.

She can hear him just fine. She just can’t breathe enough to tell him that. Her limbs are no longer hers.

“Either way,” says the beautiful one. He is no longer hurt. He looks whole, healthy, glowing.

The new one snorts. Bony hand on her wrist. “Come on then,” he says. “Places to go.”

“It’ll be okay,” adds the beautiful one. “I promise.” He still looks sad.

Her heart gives out, her lungs still, and her blood crawls to a stop. She should have just called 911. She should have taken her regular route. She should have left the house on time-

Grammy’s lemonade was always too salty, anyway.

_You gonna be okay, Sammy?_

_Yeah. When am I not?_

_I could name a few instances._

No answer.

Wasn’t expecting one, anyway.

 _Drink your beer before it gets too warm_.

 _Yeah_.

The young man shivers underneath the blanket the sailor has wrapped around him. He still looks sickly, dark hair falling in waves around a pale face, but somehow, there’s a kind of beauty to it. The kind you didn’t much see anymore, especially not at sea.

“What’s your name?” the sailor asks. “What happened to you?”

The young man does not answer. Long, elegant fingers wrap around the edges of the blanket, pulling it tighter around himself. He looks thin, painfully so, knobby knees knocking against each other as he sits there and trembles.

“Should probably get you below deck,” muses the sailor. “Get you somewhere warm.”

The young man raises his head. His eyes are large in his face, lashes wet and clumped together. His nose is pink, and so are his cheeks - but his mouth is the reddest, lips parted slightly as he breathes.

“That sound good?” the sailor asks kindly. “Get you some warm clothes, some coffee, and you can rest. Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing.”

The young man nods gratefully. He still does not speak. The sailor does not know if he’s mute from trauma, or if it’s something else. Maybe he just cannot speak.

“Captain knows some ASL,” he informs the young man. “That okay?”

The young man gives him an odd look.

“I mean, I’m assuming you can’t talk,” continues the sailor. “That so?”

No answer.

Oh, well.

The sailor goes on, undeterred. “Well, we’re a pretty small boat, but we got some room. We’ll be on shore leave soon, and I’ll help you get home. Unless-” He hesitates. “Do you have a family?”

At that, the young man nods.

“Where?” 

A shrug. 

It’s something, reasons the sailor. Some response is better than none.

“Eh, we’ll figure it out.” 

The young man’s hair is drying now, the sun picking up some of the color in it. His shivering has ceased, too, and he no longer looks so pale. He’s got a delicacy to him that the sailor cannot remember the last time he saw - the sea is rough, unpredictable, unnurturing, and sweet things don’t last long. They rot, eventually.

To survive at sea, you had to be like it - loud, salty, aggressive. 

_Nothing gold can last_ , the sailor had once read, in a book he no longer remembers the name of.

“I’ve been twenty years in this life,” he informs the young man, slowly drawing closer to him. “Never quite seen someone like you.”

The young man watches him approach. The sea breeze picks up his hair, plays with it for a few seconds, lets it go. His skin is translucent in the sun, light golden against copper hair. If the sailor was one to subscribe to the kind of myths his colleagues were often given to, he’d have put good money on the young man being… other, somehow.

Not a mermaid or anything, though. That would just be ridiculous.

“Got thrown overboard, huh?” he asks. “Mutiny?”

No reply.

“Did something to get punished?” 

Nothing. Not even a blink. Wide eyes bright and intelligent on the sailor.

“Can’t imagine it,” the sailor says thoughtfully. “Pretty little thing like you. How’d you end up here anyway? Can’t imagine the kinda family that’d let a gorgeous thing like you out of their sights.”

The young man looks wary, but does not move as the sailor approaches. Not that he has anywhere to go. He’s cornered, here on this small three-man boat in the middle of nowhere. Golden skin and wavy copper hair and those wide, bright eyes. The sailor hasn’t seen anything like him in his entire life; he looks like something out of a fairy-tale, naked and helpless and in distress, begging to be rescued.

“You’re all safe here with me,” the sailor reassures him, standing in front of him. “Won’t let anyone touch you.”

The young man does not move. He does not give any indication that the sailor’s words are registering at all. All he does is watch, eyes following every move, as the sailor reaches out, rough callused hand thrilling at the anticipation of soft skin and long legs.

Never quite gets there.

Sea breeze in his lungs, his mouth - he can taste the salt on his tongue as it fills him up, fingers clutching at his throat. It happens so fast he barely understands it. One moment he’s got his fingertips on the young man’s bottom lip, and the next he’s on his knees, drowning on a dry deck in the middle of nowhere.

He tries to shout for his captain, for the ship doctor, emits nothing but a useless gurgle. Coughs, tries to spit up seawater, fails, chokes. Vision darkening. No air, no breath, no help.

Stop, he wants to beg the young man. Somehow, he’s sure that he’s the cause of this. It makes no sense, and yet-

If the sailor was one to subscribe to the kind of myths his colleagues were often given to, he’d have said-

“Siren,” he gurgles out.

The young man smiles. He is so beautiful it’s unnatural.

“Yes,” he says, and then rises, long legs steady, hair gently shifting with the wind. He steps over the sailor’s body and reaches out to someone just out of sight. 

The captain, hopes the sailor. Or the doctor-

“All right?” 

Neither.

“All right,” confirms the young man. His voice is sweeter than anything the sailor has ever heard in his life.

“Did he touch you?” Concern, so stark against the fingernails-on-dry-bone voice. 

“Tried,” laughs the young man. 

No, the sailor wants to say. I didn’t mean any harm, I just wanted to help-

And as he drowns, he knows it’s not true.

So much for picking helpless young men out of the sea.

_I notice you’re not feeling too bad._

_Nothing to feel bad about, Dean_. Bright smile, sunshine through stormclouds.

A pause. Gauging. _Good_ , he says in the end. _I’m glad you’re happy._

 _Why wouldn’t I be?_ Pretty stained-glass eyes, dimple in his cheek.

_Yeah, why wouldn’t you be?_

Quiet moments in quiet places. Stolen, in-between seconds, just slipping through. Feet in a cool stream, shoulder to shoulder.

 _We exist_ , says Dean.

 _We exist_ , confirms Sam.

“My mama says I shouldn’t talk to strangers.”

Bright kid. It’s all in the eyes. Sharp, assessing. One foot on the ground, one foot on the bike pedal. Flight risk.

“Not strangers if I tell you my name, right?” He smiles wide. Pearly-whites, dimples, friendly and welcoming.

Hesitation. Her hands tighten on the handlebars.

“I’m Sam.”

“Helena,” she volunteers, almost reluctantly.

“See?” Wider smile, more teeth. “Not strangers anymore.”

“You gonna give me candy?” She’s apprehensive. Smart kid, really.

“Nah,” laughs Sam. He’s smarter. “I just need your help, that’s all.”

“With what?” Not buying it. Grown-ups don’t need help from kids, do they.

He holds out a picture. “Looking for this guy. You seen him?”

She squints, not moving from her place. Gonna need glasses soon. Too much time with a cell phone, maybe. Or books. Parents don’t seem to care much.

“Yeah, I’ve seen him. He’s friends with my cousin.”

“He live around here?”

She nods. Points. “Over there.” Hesitates. “Why?”

Sam smiles again. “Gotta talk to him.”

“Are you a cop?” Voice hushed, suspicious.

“No.”

“You can’t say no if you are,” she reminds him. Arbitrary childhood rules, forgotten by adolescence.

“Good thing I’m not, then.” Trustworthy. Wouldn’t ever lie to a child.

She relaxes, only a little. “He sells crack,” she whispers. “Tried to sell it to me but I said no, ‘cause drugs ruin your life, and then I can’t get into Harvard.”

“Harvard?” He’s impressed. Focuses on that, commits the rest to memory. “That’s ambitious.”

“Gonna be a lawyer,” she informs him proudly.

“Sure of it,” he laughs. “Thanks for the help, Helena.”

She nods. Hesitates once more, and then gets on her bike, cycles off. Good. He doesn’t want her around for what comes next.

Early afternoon, dull winter sun. Only a few kids out in the streets. Nobody in the house. He doesn’t knock, doesn’t say a word.

Twenty, maybe. Couple years older, possibly, at the most. Fast asleep in his bed, half-snorted line on the table. Not subtle at all.

“Wanna wake him up, have some fun?”

Dean’s in the desk chair, grinning. Looks like he always does to Sam - youthful, bright, cold winter sunshine.

Sam shakes his head. “Faster this way,” he says. Doesn’t hide his distaste. Crack, and he’s twenty, ruined who knows how many lives. How many Helenas that can’t get into Harvard anymore ‘cause of this guy.

Sam still doesn’t want him to suffer.

“Well, if you say so.” Disappointment; Dean likes having his fun. Always had. Amplified by the Mark - though it was so even before that.

“I say so.” Sam steps aside.

Dean gets up, approaches. Looks down at the passed out figure on the stained bedsheets, and reaches out. For a moment Sam sees what everyone must see as they’re reaped - decay, broken nails, a lipless snarl of a smile - but then Dean collects the soul, tarnished despite its age, and he’s youthful, bright, the sun in the winter.

“Done?”

“Done.”

_All right there, Sammy?_

Midnight, field, starry sky. Constellations above, car hood below. Should be cold. Never is, not when Dean’s around.

 _I’m fine_.

_Quieter than usual. Got something on your mind?_

Sigh. Breath condenses in the night air. _How long are we gonna keep this up?_

Pause. Silence. Elephant between them, no longer ignorable. _As long as we can_.

_And what then?_

_Sammy, what’s going on, man?_

Another sigh. _Been centuries, Dean. I’m tired_.

 _How do you think_ **_I_ ** _feel?_ Exasperation. Expected. _Look, I didn’t ask for any of this, all right? How was I supposed to see this coming?_

Sam’s forgotten many things. This he remembers clearly. Scythe swinging, Death dying. Him, alive. Dean, alive. _You knew there had to be consequences._

 _What was I supposed to do?_ Anger, now. Also anticipated. _Kill you?_

 _Maybe_ , he whispers.

 _Well, I couldn’t, all right?_ Forceful. Emphatic. Predictable.

 _You never could let me go._ He’s resigned, fond. It is what it is.

_Sammy-_

_It’s all right. I chose to stay, too._

Reaches out. Dean is cold.

Sam never is.

Head on shoulder. _I know you think you’re forcing me to stay._

_Sammy, I-_

_You’re not. You - I want you to know that_.

Dean does not sigh in relief, because he does not breathe. _Thanks, Sammy._

 _Yeah_. Silence for a while. Stargazing, content; Orion, Lyra, Perseus.

They’re not made for happy endings, he fears.

_Sammy?_

_I’m just tired, Dean. Of the killing. So many people, I-_

_Sam._ Forced chuckle. _I’m Death. Did you forget? It’s kind of in the name._

_The job description is to send souls to heaven or hell. Not to make a buffet out of them._

_You wanna stop?_ Wary now, almost afraid.

 _No_. The painful truth. Sam hates admitting it. _I just wish there was another way_.

 _Me, too_. A confession. _But I’m not going to apologize for it. They wanna make me immortal, they’ve just gotta accept you’re part of the deal._

_They’re not gonna make me immortal just ‘cause you’re serving up souls like they’re salad, Dean._

_Doesn’t have to be that way. They could make me mortal instead._

_Not how it works. There’s gotta be a Death._

_Why’s it have to be me, then?_

_You serious?_

_No, I know. ‘Cause I killed Death._ Snort. _In my defense, though, old man had it comin’. Telling me to kill you, honestly. Shoulda known it wouldn’t have gone his way._

_Didn’t exactly go our way, either._

Shrug. _Eh, I’ll take it._

_Easy for you to say, you’re not a soul-eating siren._

_Hey, I’d rather be a siren than a fugly reaper, dude. You got the better end of the deal, here._

_You’re not, though. Fugly._

_Dude, you kidding? I look like a corpse left out in the summer heat in the middle of a swamp in Texas._

Laughs. Can’t help it. Always so vividly descriptive. _Not to me, though._

 _No?_ Intrigued. _What do I look like to you?_

Shrug. _The same as you always have._

 _Oh._ Then, _so do you. Exactly the same._

Small grin. Sam nudges Dean’s shoulder with his face, settles again. _Look pretty good for our age, huh._

_I always did say we were gonna be the best lookin’ geezers in the nursing home, Sammy._

In another life, maybe.

Not this one.

Sam hopes he can be okay with that one day.

Four hundred years. Life goes on.

People don’t change.

Hotshot lawyer, tailored suits, coiffed hair, shoes that cost more than a small country’s GDP. Million dollar smile, expensive dental work, veneers so white they glow in the dark. “How did you get up here?”

Easy smile. “Took the elevators.”

“If you need a meeting, take it up with my secretary.” Impatient, brushes past him into the office, polished mahogany desk.

“Well, I’m already here.” Sam takes the liberty of sitting down in the chair across the desk.

It annoys the old man. Sam doesn’t care.

“Look, I’m two grand an hour, and excuse my frankness, but I don’t think you can afford-”

“Looks are deceiving. For instance-” Sam’s got his own pearly-whites. Flashes them, predatory, self-assured. “You’re not even half as respectable as you look.”

“Excuse me?” Carefully crafted outrage, fake sensibilities offended.

“Embezzlement, fraud, forgery,” lists off Sam. Still smiling wide. “And that’s just in the last month.”

“Who are you?” Old man pale as the cream paper he prints on, ridiculously overpriced.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam tells him. Stands. “Not the question you should be concerning yourself with.”

“Look, I don’t know who you are, or what you want-” Bristling, threatened. Corner’s not a lot of fun being the backee instead of the backer. 

“Oh, are you threatening me?” Polite disinterest. “With what?”

“If you want money-”

Sam laughs. “Not even a penny. Haven’t got much use for it.”

“Then?” Almost desperate now. Glances past Sam, doesn’t see his secretary through the glass doors. Her bathroom break’s gonna take a while.

“I want to make a deal.”

“For?” Not even two minutes and Sam’s got this guy in his pocket.

Pearly-whites out again. Dimples, too. Anyone else would see him, find him harmless, charming. Sweet guy from next door, that Sam. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.

People, on the other hand.

“Your soul,” he says simply.

“My-” Abrupt, incredulous laugh. “No, you’re insane. _Insane_ -”

Hands out of pocket, outstretched. “Then in that case.” Shrug. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all. “You wouldn’t mind shaking my hand, and we can let this go.”

Eyes so wide they’re in danger of popping out. “What are you - no. You’re mad. Insane. I’m calling security-”

“Just a handshake,” presses Sam, whiskey and smoke voice. Raw honey, always irresistible.

“And you’ll leave me alone?” He’s suspicious. He’s right to be.

“You’ll never see me again,” confirms Sam. Hand still out.

Old man’s not lost all his instinct - fear, apprehension, suspicion.

Hope, too - reaches out, shakes Sam’s hand.

Sam didn’t lie - he never does see Sam again. 

Or anyone else.

“Almost too easy,” Dean notes as he watches Sam feed on the soul.

Sam shrugs, finishing. “People don’t change.”

“No, they don’t,” agrees Dean.

They haven’t, beyond the obvious. Why should anyone else?

_Your actions do not exist in a vacuum._ A reaper had told them that. She said her name was Billie. _There are consequences._

 _Not interested._ Dean, of course. Shielding Sam, who’d still been on his knees. Wet-faced, teary-eyed, shell-shocked.

 _Not interested in your disinterest_ , she’d countered. _There’s a cosmic order to these things. There always has to be a Death._ Nodded to the scythe. 

_Why can’t it be you?_ Sam, desperate, grabbing handfuls of Dean’s shirt to pull himself to his feet.

 _It should have been_. Lip curling in distaste. Barely disguised disgusted sneer. _But that_ **_thing_ ** _on his arm does not leave us much of a choice._

_Can’t you take it off?_

_Do not make demands of me, child._ Condescension layered with maternal agelessness. _Your brother must reap what he has sown._ A pause. _Pun intended._

 _I don’t_ **_want_ ** _it_. Forceful, as always. Killed Death without a thought, all because Death wanted Sam gone. Ready to fight now for what he’d wanted, as he’d always been.

 _I don’t care what you want,_ she’d said. _Actions have consequences, Dean. You sowed. Now reap._

_And what about Sam?_

_Sam? Sam has done nothing._

_So Sam’s-_

_Mortal? Yes. Of course he is._

_No. No, I don’t want that, I don’t want to be without Dean-_

_None of this is about what you want, Sam._

_That’s not fair, make me mortal too, I don’t want this, lady-_

_None of this is about what’s fair, either._

Gone before either of them could argue.

(“Ground rules. No innocent people. No kids.”

“Yeah, got it. Wouldn’t’ve done it anyway, Sammy.”

“Gotta make sure.”

A pause. “‘Cause you think I won’t discriminate.”

Sigh. “You still have the Mark. I tried, but-”

“Won’t budge.”

“Yeah.” A minute. Another. “So what, I just - I just consume the souls?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Every soul gives you the owner’s lifetime.”

“And - and where do they go?”

“Sam…”

“Dean, I just - it’s not fair to them, I can’t-”

“None of this is about what’s fair, Sammy. You heard her.”

“But why should-”

“Hey, you got something else, I’m all ears, man.” Thirty seconds. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Sammy, this is why we’ve got ground rules. I know you don’t want innocent people to suffer. So - so they won’t. Win-win.”

“Win-win.” Bitter, helpless. “That’s what we’re calling it?”

“Sam… you know there’s nothing else, right?”

“I wish there was.”

“Me, too.”)

_Dean?_

_Yeah, Sammy?_

Dirty beds in dirty motel rooms. Late night, neon through faded lace curtains. Unreliable lamp on the table between them, on, off, on, off.

No salt lines. No sigils. Nothing can touch them here.

An in-between space.

_I wanna go home, Dean._

_Home? Okay, next time we can go to the bunker-_

_No, Dean._

_The house in Lawrence?_ Hesitant, a little skeptical.

 _No, Dean_.

Silence so loud it rings. _Sammy, you don’t mean - not Palo Alto-_

_Wasn’t home._

Raises himself up on an elbow. Dean where the light hits - a corpse where it doesn’t. Gaunt and putrid, centuries old now, still his brother. Still Dean. Still his. 

_Sam, I don’t know what you’re talking about._

Long exhale. Eyes focused on where the light shines on Dean’s face. Whiskey-smoke-gun oil scent, not dead, not sloughing, not decaying. 

_Kermit?_

_No, Dean. Wasn’t home, either._ Even less than Palo Alto.

 _Then_ **_what_** _, Sam?_

_I’m so tired, Dean._

_Oh no, you are not gettin outta this conversation this easy-_

_I’m not. I’m just - Dean, I’m so tired._ A tear slips out. _And - and I wanna go home. It’s been forever, I can’t do this, I can’t, Dean, I want to go home._

 _Sam._ Helpless now. _Sam, I can’t reap you. I can’t. Don’t ask that of me._

_I’m not, I - I don’t wanna leave you, I want to go with you, but-_

_You know that’s not possible._

_You killed Death! That means someone can kill you, too-_

_And what about this?_ Sleeve rolled up. Angry Mark scar, raised red-hot, branded, damned. _Sam, you know damn well this only buys me a ticket to one place, and it ain’t upstairs. That’s where I go if someone reaps me. And the last thing I want is to drag you down with me._

_There’s gotta be another way._

Dean gets up, moves to Sam’s bed. Sits. Cold hands on Sam’s face, wiping tears away. They’re six and two, they’re eight and four, they’re thirty-six and thirty-two. Ageless timeless gesture, always the same no matter what.

_Sammy… I wish there was. But you know there isn’t._

Desperate clutch of hands. Sam begs with his eyes.

 _Sam. You know I’d give anything if there was a way. You_ **_know_** _._

Closes his eyes. An argument lost centuries ago, with one swing of a scythe that never should have been in Dean’s hands.

_I never could leave you, anyway._

Dean closes his eyes too, squeezes Sam’s hand in both of his. _I know, Sammy._

Just another thing that they’ll have to live with.

“Why didn’t the spell work? Rowena, why didn’t it work?”

“It was too late, Sam.” She watches him as he paces. “He had already swung.”

He stops in front of her. “Is there _nothing_ you can do?”

“This is beyond the scope of my abilities, Sam,” she answers eventually. “You know that.”

“There’s got to be something-” Desperate. Not pleading, though, not yet, not to her.

“Samuel.” Her tone stops him short in his tracks once more. “This was a gamble to begin with. I’m afraid you’ve lost.”

“I’ll give you anything you want.” Not pleading, not yet. A deal, perhaps.

“And I’d take you up on that,” she responds, “if there was something I could do.”

“Can’t you just take some time, look through your - your books, or-” Finally, pleading.

There is pity in her eyes. 

“No, Sam.” Then, nail in coffin, “I’m sorry.”

No. Not that, not from her, he can’t take it. He is not so pitiful as to receive _that_ look from creatures of the night, creatures that should fear him.

“Is there anyone else?” he asks, tight, controlled.

“No,” she answers. Opens her mouth again, and-

Never speaks again.

Dean finds him later, sitting on the cold stone floor, staring at the space between his knees. Rowena’s soul is a dark, shapeless mass, flitting helplessly about the room. Her body is cold at his feet.

“Sammy, what did you do?”

“You’re supposed to reap her soul,” Sam says, toneless. Her blood is hot on his face and hands. “So that she can go… wherever she’s supposed to go.”

Dean looks at it, uncertain. It can’t see him, but it shrinks from him anyway.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits, after a moment.

“Reap it,” Sam says.

“I don’t know _how_.” Kneels next to Sam, takes off his shirt, begins wiping the blood off his little brother. Gentle, familiar, and yet his hands are now cold.

“How am I supposed to live without you?” Sam whispers, eyes closed. Not crying, not yet, but tasting salt anyway.

Dean doesn’t answer.

“What am I supposed to _do_?”

Dean doesn’t answer.

They capture the soul in a spelled glass vial until they can figure out what to do with it. Billie does not answer summons. There is no instruction manual, no online tutorial, _How to Reap a Soul, Easy DIY._

Rowena’s spell books have instructions, though. So many spells for souls it leaves Sam breathless. Binding souls. Removing them. Disintegrating them. Stealing them.

Consuming them.

“How much longer do you think she would have lived?” Sam wonders, gazing at the restless soul in the vial in his hands. The glass is freezing-cold where the soul brushes up against it, ink in thin air.

“Long enough,” Dean answers. He’s not happy about this. “You sure you wanna do this, Sammy?”

“No.” Curt, determined. “But… just until we figure something else out.”

Dean nods. “Okay.”

The soul tastes like ash. Sam grimaces when it hits the back of his throat. Settles heavy in his belly. 

It’s done.

Can’t live without Dean. Doesn’t matter what he has to do.

Sitting at the edge of a cliff, legs dangling off. Passing a joint back and forth.

 _Worst soul you’ve ever had_ , says Dean.

Sun beating down on their backs, forest-scented breeze. Lake below. Could jump, swim for a while, be weightless in the water.

 _Crowley’s_ , Sam answers finally. _Tasted like sulfur._ Too reminiscent of demon blood, but he doesn't say it. Takes the joint from Dean, puts it to red lips. _Worst soul you’ve reaped._

 _That kiddie fucker in the Ozarks, couple hundred years ago,_ Dean answers promptly. _Son of a bitch. Hope he’s burnin in hell._ Even Sam hadn’t wanted to eat that one, likened it to eating a rotting corpse.

 _Wonder what my soul looks like_ , Sam says after a pensive moment.

 _Looks the same it always has_ , Dean tells him after a moment, taking the joint from him.

Sam grins, humorless. _You’re just saying that._

 _Swear on your life_ , Dean says at once. The most important thing he can swear on. _Brightest soul I ever seen, Sammy. Not even kidding._

 _Still?_ Stunned.

 _Still._ Confirmatory. _Always has been_.

Sam takes the joint back, trembling fingers. Drags. _Wonder where I’ll go. When I’m-_

Dean snatches it back, puts it to cold lips. _Not goin anywhere, not on my watch. But_ , he adds, _wherever it is… I’ll follow_.

Same song on repeat. Doesn’t get old no matter how much time passes. So comforting it’s a lullaby.

“Oh, now you show up?” Dean is irate, exasperated. 

Billie raises an eyebrow. “Problem?” 

“Where were you when I needed someone to show me the ropes?” he demands.

The other eyebrow goes up. “Don’t throw tantrums at me, boy.” Glances over at Sam, the half-consumed soul in his hands, the body by his feet. “Enjoying your meal?”

Sam glares. Dean would be proud, if he wasn’t so afraid.

“Why are you here? To stop us?”

“No,” she answers. Hands in pockets. “To warn you.”

Mirthless laugh. Sam finishes his meal. “What, that this can’t end well?”

“You don’t need me to tell you that. You don’t need me to show you how dark your path is.”

“You can’t stop us.” 

“No,” she acknowledges. “And I do not intend to. I am not Death; you are.” Eyes the scythe in Dean’s hands, prominent bones and cold skin.

“That’s right.” False bravado, so much fear. All for Sam. “You can’t reap him, ‘cause he’s not dead. And you can’t stop me, either.”

She nods. “Just remember,” she says, soft, a whisper in the wind, darker than the night, “that actions have consequences, Dean. Sooner or later.” Watches them both. “There are books. The future is all written down. Changeable, yet firm. For as long as you do not interfere with destiny, I cannot intervene. But once you do… all bets are off.”

“What are you gonna do, kill me?” challenges Dean.

Ghost of a smile. “I suppose we’ll just wait and see how it all turns out.”

And then she’s gone.

“Good talk,” Dean remarks at the space where she was.

“What do you think she meant, consequences?” asks Sam.

They head to the bunker. Research, research, research. Easier when time is not an issue. 

Nothing.

Nothing about consequences.

Nothing about an alternative to living like this.

Nothing.

“What now?” Dean asks.

Sam closes his eyes. A tear slips down his cheek. “We go on as we were.”

Dean catches the second tear. “It’ll be okay, Sammy. Me ‘n you. Like it always is. It’ll be okay.”

This is all they have.

_One thousand years_ , says Dean, handing Sam his beer. Ice-cold, perfect, just the way he likes it. 

_One thousand years_ , echoes Sam. Their fingers brush. Warm skin, cold beer, colder skin.

Back in the Impala. Sun-warmed leather seats, ice-cold beer.

An in-between space.

Dean lifts his beer. _Here’s to a thousand more_.

Sam touches the neck of his beer to Dean’s. _And a thousand more._

They’re happy to exist.

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you thought of it!!! and don't forget to tell marsajar how frickin amazing their art is!!!  
> as always, you can find me on tumblr @[thelegendofwinchester](https://chesterbennington.co.vu) \- come say hi!
> 
> love,  
> remy


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